An unacceptable level of
pain is being used to restrain children in secure custody, a report
says. The independent investigation into the treatment of children in
prison, led by Lord Carlile, found pain was used to enforce compliance.
That was "unacceptable" and may be illegal, the report said.
The investigation was set up following the death of a 15-year-old boy
in a privately-run secure unit while he was being restrained by three
adult staff. The inquiry, commissioned by the Howard League for Penal
Reform, looked into the use of restraint techniques and strip searching.

Varying figures

It found that physical force
was used against youngsters 15,512 times during a 21-month period in
England and Wales, with injuries to both staff and children not uncommon.
Liberal Democrat Lord Carlile said his team of advisors "shared
my shock at some of the practices we witnessed". "We found
that some of the treatment children in custody experience would in another
setting be considered abusive and could trigger a child protection investigation."
Figures varied between institutions - in which there are in total 2,800
children and young people held in England and Wales, including 200 girls.
At one secure training centre, Medway in Kent, 1,818 injuries to children
as a result of restraint from January 2004 to June 2005 were reported.
At Rainsbrook near Rugby there were 118, Hassockfield in County Durham
reported 177 and Oakhill in Milton Keynes listed 48 from its opening
in September 2004 to August 2005. A sample of five out of 24 local authority
secure children's homes in England and Wales revealed 73 injuries to
children from January 2004 to August 2005. Young offenders institutions
did not keep central records of how many children had been injured in
restraint incidents. The inquiry found some evidence that staff would
"bait" children into situations that would lead to them being
restrained for the adult's "own gratification".

Staff have permission to
deliberately hurt children

Carolyne Willow - Children's
Rights Alliance for England. The report accepts that many of the 10
to 17-year-olds held in young offender institutions, secure training
centres and local authority secure children's homes have had chaotic
and abusive childhoods and lack clear boundaries to their behaviour.
But it said that unnecessarily painful restraint techniques were used
to deal with dissent in some institutions. Handcuffs were used in the
four privately-run secure training centres, something the inquiry says
should stop. And the need for a strip search should be based on evidence,
something the report says would cut the number of strip searches by
half. The Youth Justice Board chairman Professor Rod Morgan said staff
were encouraged to use non-physical methods to deal with difficult behaviour.
"We want to move to a situation where the staff have sufficient
confidence and are sufficiently well-trained that they don't have to
rely on physical restraint to the degree that in some instances they
are currently doing," he said.

Mental health

However, he said there was
an underlying problem about a lack of spaces for young offenders who
had mental health problems - and should be in healthcare rather than
custodial care. Although children have behaved badly and some of them
committed terrible crimes... they're still children

Prison Reform Trust

He called for a three-part
inter-departmental review - to look at children dealt with in the criminal
courts and end up in custody; those dealt with in the family courts
and end up in care; and those dealt with under the mental health act
and end up in psychiatric care. Children's Rights Alliance for England
national co-ordinator Carolyne Willow, a member of Lord Carlile's advisory
panel, said: "We are not talking here about children being hurt
in the rough and tumble of restraint. "Staff have permission to
deliberately hurt children." "As a former child protection
social worker, I am stunned that this is allowed to happen." The
inquiry was told that one in five restraints of children resulted in
injury.

'They're still children'

Director of the Prison Reform
Trust Juliette Lyon says children are being failed by the prison system
and they invariably end up re-offending. Cases where children needed
to be restrained should be the "rarest of rare events", she
told BBC News. "When you look at the number of times that physical
restraints were used in the course of less than a year - thousands of
times, on some quite young children - you realise it's being used as
a matter of course when it's a disciplinary issue. "Although children
have behaved badly and some of them committed terrible crimes, although
that is a minority, they're still children," she added. Lord Carlile's
report concludes that police should be ready to prosecute in cases where
children appear to have been assaulted. The inquiry was launched after
the death of Garth Myatt, 15, in April 2004. He died after being restrained
by three members of staff four days into his sentence at privately-run
Rainsbrook secure training centre, near Rugby.